Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Archer woke hard, confusion blurring the edges of sleep and reality. He reached across the bed before his eyes were even open and found the cool sheets.
He’d slept later than usual, missed his predawn meditation. But a quick inspection of his inner mind found it…calm.
His body had found its own version of peace in the memory of Jolie’s silky skin and her legs tangled with his throughout the night.
He pushed upright and scanned the room for her. The only garment she was wearing when she knocked on his door—the oversized tee—lay on the floor where he’d let it drop.
But his shirt and sweats were gone.
He climbed out of bed and followed the muffled noises coming from the other end of the base—and the smell of fresh coffee.
He stopped in the kitchen door to drink in the sight, and a slow grin tugged at his lips.
Jolie stood at the stove with her back to him, barefoot, wearing his black T-shirt. It fell to mid-thigh on her and his sweats were rolled twice at the waist to keep them on. Her hair was loose and mussed from their night together, and damn if the sight of her didn’t have his cock stiffening.
She flipped bacon in the skillet with ease and as though she felt his stare on her, she glanced over her shoulder at him. “You’re awake.” Her smile was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “Now you ruined my surprise.”
“What surprise?”
“Breakfast in bed.”
He leaned against the frame and gave her a once-over that made her cheeks grow pink. “Keep talking.”
“I was going to bring you bacon, toast and coffee.”
“Seeing you in my shirt is more than I deserve.”
She snorted softly and turned back to the stove, but he could tell she was pleased.
He watched her another moment, aware he was approaching the point of no return with her.
Hell, he was already moving past it.
He retreated to the bedroom to await the surprise he’d spoiled. He lay with one arm behind his head and stared at the ceiling, dodging too many thoughts trying to creep in.
Like how he wouldn’t mind waking to her smile every day. Or wearing his shirt.
Or the fact that all his hard-earned grasp on control flew out the window as soon as Jolie entered his life.
A sharp knock on the door jerked him from his thoughts. He got up and yanked it open, already knowing it wouldn’t be Jolie.
Without asking, Rome walked past Archer, stepping over Jolie’s discarded top as he did.
Archer’s fingers clamped tighter on the door. “By all means, Rome, come in. What’s up?”
“Just here for a welfare check.”
He cocked a brow. “Say whatever you came to say.”
Rome folded his arms. “I warned you, Monk—this is a hopeless idea.”
Archer rubbed the back of his neck. “I know.” No point denying the obvious.
“I walked into the kitchen and saw her in your shirt. You know you don’t get a happily ever after, and still you went and did it.”
“Did what?”
“Fell for her.”
The words slammed him like a round of gunfire—brutal because they were true.
“How can I help it?” Archer said quietly.
Rome’s expression changed, the hard edge giving way to something older and sadder.
“You stop now,” he said. “That’s how.”
Archer laughed once with no humor in it. “Little late.”
While he was grateful for the brotherhood, he didn’t need guidance in this department.
“No. Late is when she’s wrecked because you couldn’t think past your own hunger.”
The shot found bone.
Archer stepped closer. “You think this is hunger?”
“I think you’re a man who’s starved and finally found a table.”
For a second neither moved. Archer’s fist clenched as anger welled up.
Rome exhaled and broke the stare-down first.
“I’m trying to keep both of you from bleeding out slowly.”
Archer crossed his arms. “You done?”
“No.”
“Shocking.”
Rome ignored that. “Can you give her a normal life?”
“No.”
“Can you leave this work?”
“No.”
“Can you promise she won’t be targeted because of you?”
Archer’s silence answered for him.
Rome nodded once. “Then tell me what exactly you’re building here.”
Footsteps sounded in the hall before Archer could answer.
Light, quick, familiar.
Jolie came in carrying a tray. She stopped when she saw Rome, then looked between them with immediate suspicion.
“Am I interrupting a testosterone ritual?” she asked.
Rome smiled like he hadn’t just given Archer the big-brother act when he was pretty sure they were the same age. “Only if you brought enough bacon.”
“I did not.”
“Then no.”
She set the tray on the bed, taking a moment to read the room.
Rome clapped Archer once on the shoulder as he passed. “Eat while it’s hot.”
“Get out.”
Rome paused at the door and looked back. “I mean what I said.”
“Yeah.”
After he left, silence settled in the room.
Jolie set her hands on her hips, drowning in Archer’s sweats and looking fucking perfect. “What was that about?”
Archer glanced at the breakfast, then at the woman who’d made it, then at the closed door, to where Rome had delivered truth like a knife.
He wanted ten more minutes before reality seeped back in.
“Later,” he said.
“That usually means never.”
“It’s classified.”
She studied him another second before she climbed into bed and tucked herself in. “Fine. But I’m stealing your toast.”
He handed it over gladly, knowing what bound him and Jolie together was doomed but wanting it anyway.
* * * * *
Jolie nibbled the toast crust and eyed Archer from beneath her lashes. He stood beside the bed in a pair of low-slung jeans. Sleep mussed the short, dark strands of his hair just made for her fingers.
The overhead light was a bit too harsh, but it highlighted the hard planes of his chest and carved ridges of his stomach, showcasing a body sculpted by discipline.
She set the toast back on the plate and crawled across the bed to him—because dammit, a woman could only be so strong.
Kneeling on the mattress in front of him, she tilted her face up to his. “Everything okay?”
He grunted one of his masculine noises that might get on some women’s nerves, but to Jolie, they were a form of communication she was learning how to read.
He reached out and cupped her cheek, and she leaned into his touch.
He came up against the side of the bed, his thighs warm against hers and his six-pack abs far too distracting at this range.
“There’s bacon.”
“I noticed.”
“And coffee.”
“I’m deeply impressed.”
She narrowed her eyes in a playful glare. “I can give it to one of the other guys.”
He caught her wrist before she could pretend to reach for the tray.
They settled into bed side by side, the tray balanced between them. They ate in companionable silence even though she burned to ask what happened between him and Rome that caused tension to flood the room.
Their shoulders bumped as they both reached for their coffee mugs, and she felt a little breathless when their eyes met.
Other mornings-after in her life had been awkward, but not this.
It felt absurdly easy.
When he set his empty mug on the tray, he searched her face. She couldn’t help but feel like he was memorizing her, maybe the same way she had watched him before she slipped out of bed.
She moved the tray to a stable spot at the foot of the bed and slipped to her feet. “I’m going to take a shower.”
His gaze roamed over her in a slow, lazy pass that made awareness creep low into her stomach. “I’ll join you.”
She gave him a coy look, and he chuckled, his smile too devastating to her senses.
“Go start the water. I’ll take this back to the kitchen.”
As she walked to the bathroom, her legs felt too wobbly. Probably from the memory of his tongue moving between them last night.
And his cock inside her.
By the time the hot water steamed the mirror, Archer stepped into the shower behind her, his hard body impossible to ignore. He closed the glass door and the small space seemed to shrink around them.
He pulled her in and kissed her, water pouring over both of them.
When they broke apart, he reached for the body wash.
He worked it into his palms and ran his hands over her shoulders, down her arms, across her waist. It was sensual, for sure…
but it was strangely intimate. The kind of care she never expected from a man built like a weapon.
Water tracked over the scars on his body, some pale and flat, others rougher and newer.
She touched one that cut across his side. “Tell me how you got these.”
His smile curved. “Have we reached the interrogation stage of our day already?”
“I’m curious. Unless it’s classified.” She wiggled her brows.
His smirk told her he caught on that she knew he hadn’t been honest with her when he said that earlier.
She leaned in and brushed her lips over another mark near his shoulder. “Start talking.”
“Well, you already know about the ones on my ribs since you patched me up.”
She studied the spots that were healing quickly, as if the man was more than flesh and blood and had superhuman abilities as well.
She poured some soap into her hands and traced over his skin, leaving tiny bubbles behind.
“Most of these aren’t war stories,” he said at last.
“No?”
“More like family stories.”
Surprised, she looked up at him. He tapped a scar behind his left ear. “Fishhook.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“My brother Bram tried to cast off the dock before checking if anyone was behind him.”
She laughed. “How old were you?”
“Ten. He was eight and blamed me for standing in the wrong place.”
She laughed.
Archer turned, letting the water run down his back and his fine, carved ass. A faint white line crossed one shoulder blade.
She touched it. “What about this one?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Sled.”
“That is not an explanation, Archer.”
“We loved sledding in the winter. But spring came too soon that year and we weren’t finished.”
“So where were you sledding if there wasn’t any snow?”
“The stairs.”
Her jaw dropped. “You didn’t.”
“Yup. I went first because I was oldest and had to test if it was safe for my siblings. I found out it wasn’t when I hit the post at the bottom and the wood sliced open my shoulder.”
She shook her head. “Your poor mother.”
“You have no idea.”
He twisted to face her and took her by the wrist, guiding her hand lower. She sucked in a breath of anticipation that he was going to settle her palm over his hardening cock, but he guided it to his hip.
“This was my BMX phase.”
“Your what now?”
“My bike trick phase. Ramps, jumps. Lots of poor judgment. I was gonna be a famous stunt biker.”
She laughed. “So how did you get this scar?”
“I cleared half a picnic table.”
“Half?”
“There was a landing issue.” He let out a deep, rumbling laugh.
She touched the scar, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. Every story peeled back another layer of the man she’d first seen as all hard edges and harsh silence. Now she pictured Archer with brothers. Archer as a reckless boy.
Archer laughing.
She loved that more than she should.
Beneath the scars and the command in his voice, he was so clearly a family man. The kind who would carry groceries without being asked, would remember birthdays…
And terrify anyone who hurt the people he loved.
The realization slid into her chest and nested there before she could stop it.
“What?” he asked.
She hadn’t realized she was staring. “Nothing.”
“Jolie.”
To distract him, she smoothed soap over his chest. “I was deciding whether to believe any of these stories.”
“Ask my mother.”
“I’d like to.”
The words came out before she thought them through.
His expression changed—not withdrawal exactly. More like caution.
She moved on, tracing the line of soap bubbles lower, following the hard line of his calf to a scar wrapped around one ankle.
“What about this one?”
His body went rigid under her hand, and there was only the sound of the shower for several heartbeats.
She looked up at him. “Archer?”
His gaze was fixed on the tile but he had a faraway stare that said he wasn’t seeing it. When he spoke, his voice was flat in a way she’d never heard before.
“That’s where I was tied to a chair during captivity.”
Suddenly she felt as if the water had run cold.
She pushed to her feet and gently touched his jaw. “I’m sorry.” She started to pull away, but he caught her hand and held it in place.
“For asking?”
“For touching a place that hurt.”
His stare intensified, his eyes clearer and older than they’d been a moment ago.
“It doesn’t hurt now. I worked through it.”
But she knew some pain changed shape instead of leaving, not unlike her own grief for her parents.
Water slid between them. She ran her thumb over his jaw and then leaned closer. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“I know.” He touched her cheek and began to talk. “I was tied there for long stretches. At first it was a rope, but after I broke through that, he used a chain. It cut into my leg. When it got infected, he just handcuffed me.”
She swallowed around a sudden ache in her throat and the image in her head of a man as strong as Archer being close to broken. “Did you think you’d get out?”
“Some days.”
“And others?”
“I thought about home.” His words were jagged with the truth of a man who’d survived by holding on to the memory of people who loved him. Same way she clung to her family waiting for her back in Chicago.
Only now…
She swallowed again. Only now she had someone here.
“Hey.”
She blinked quickly to dispel the tears trying to surface. “I’m fine.”
“You’re about to cry over my ankle.”
“I’m trying not to.”
A faint but real smile crossed his face. “Come here, love.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and he folded her against him. They stood under the spray for a long time, neither speaking. She listened to his heartbeat under her ear.
The man was made of scars from brothers and bicycles and winters and war, all of it carried on skin that felt warm and alive under her hands.
He brushed wet hair from her face, his eyes glinting. “You still think I’m sexy?”
She laughed. “Sexier. Even after your tragic picnic-table accident.”
“Hey, that scar is legendary.”
“In your own mind.”
He laughed, and she kissed his open mouth, slow and deep, tasting coffee and the intoxicating flavor of the man she was getting far too attached to.